Sage Teon and the Fake Diamond Heist

Part I: The Plan

The following is a short story from the Razia series. The first book Double Life is available now in paperback and as a free ebook. Book 2 Alliances and Book 3 Conviction are also available in print and ebook ($2.99)

Sage Teon had a problem.

The Academy of Geological Sciences had recently purchased a very rare, very expensive set of diamonds. They were to be studied, extensively, by the brainiacs and then shipped to the Academy's museum on S-864 where they would be displayed to considerable fanfare.

The problem was the diamonds weren't real.

Sage was neither a diamond expert nor aficionado of fine stones. He owned exactly one piece of jewelry in his life, and that was his mother's ring hidden in the bowels of his closet, under his dirty socks and next to his porn. But Sage had recently been hired by the very man who had sold the gems to the Academy, begging the pirate to swipe the fake diamonds before his forgery was discovered. Seemingly more concerned for his reputation than forfeiting the considerable money he had made, he offered to pay Sage a king's ransom for the removal of the fakes from the Academy's headquarters on S-8663.

The money was going to be nice, but the downside of such a complex, expensive job was Sage was sure the Academy would place a similarly-sized bounty on his head. Sage was already hovering in the low-twenties now; after this, he might even break the top fifteen. Unlike some people, Sage preferred to stay in the middle of the pack, as being constantly dogged by bounty hunters was nothing short of annoying.

Speaking of bounty hunters, he knew exactly what she was going to say when she found out his bounty had jumped. He imagined she'd give him one of her signature death stares, or whine about how unfair life was. It wasn't Sage's fault Dissident, the runner of the pirate web they both belonged to, didn't want to listen to reason about her. Nearly every time the old man called, Sage was pestering him to take Razia off probation, to let her use her considerable talents to capture some of the pirates in the rival webs. But Dissident seemed to loathe Razia as much as he loved Sage, and so Sage's pleas fell on deaf ears.

Well, he just wouldn't mention this job to her and she wouldn't get mad at him again.

Or maybe, he thought with a smile, he would mention it. She was awfully cute when she was angry with him. Her nose crinkled and her lips-

"Yo boss, are you here?" Ganon, his pilot, was talking over a map of the Academy laboratory building where the diamonds were held and the plans for how they were going to extract them.

"Yeah," Sage said, dragging himself from thoughts of nose crinkles and pursed lips. "So what'd you guys find out?"

"The diamonds are being housed in their maximum security room," Ganon said, sounding a bit annoyed to be repeating himself. "Brand new security system, too - from Tychon."

Sage grimaced; Tychon was one of the top security equipment companies. It would be hard enough to get onto the planet in the first place, but with Tychon's line of highly secure cryptographic locks on the laboratory, this was now a much more difficult job.

"Sobal, got anything for me?" Sage asked, looking to his youngest - and newest - member of his team. Sobal Rider, a tall, lanky kid, had been on his crew for less than a month. The kid had been causing trouble for the transport line on S-864, coding a virus that re-routed the automatic trains to different stops because he was bored. While Sage considered himself to be moderately proficient at cyber attacks, five minutes with the kid convinced him to hire him before the Universal Police got their hands on him.

Still, when Sobal wasn't in front of a screen, he was still a fifteen year old kid, who had basically run away from home to join a pirate crew.

"I...uh..." Sobal stammered, his face growing redder as all eyes turned to him.

"Spit it out," Ganon barked.

"I mean, I can try," Sobal said meekly.

Ganon threw Sage a tired look. Ganon was the first pirate Sage hired, only a month after Tauron's death, when Sage suddenly found himself one of the top thirty pirates. He was still in shock, wandering around D-882 when he wasn't holed up in Harms' apartment, when some low-ranked pirates in Protestor's web nearly captured him. Ganon had been nearby, and stepped in to help Sage fight him off. Ganon was working as a second string pilot to Jeam Bullock, another pirate in Dissident's web. Sage gladly accepted the other man's offer to join what eventually became a six man crew.

With it came to hiring Sobal, Ganon had objected to hiring the hacker, simply because he didn't seem to do well under pressure, but Sage had faith in the kid. In many ways, Sobal reminded Sage of himself, and he couldn't even count the number of times Tauron had given him a task that he'd failed miserably at.

"This is going to be another Shapur Kay all over again," Ganon muttered, tapping his hands on the table.

"Oh, come on, that was fun," Sage grinned. "And I saw you showing that scar off at Eamon's last weekend, so don't even try."

"This ain't-"

"Sobal, go get to work on deciphering the security code," Sage said, cutting off Ganon. Sage never did any better when Wade, one of Tauron's crew, used to dig on him, and he was sure that Sobal would fail miserably unless given some positive reinforcement. The kid stood up and scurried back to his dark room, his tablet clutched in his hand.

"I am not even setting foot on that planet until I have faith that he can do this," Ganon said, definitively.

"Yeah, yeah, he'll be fine," Sage waved him off, turning back to the maps in front of them. "So back to the map here..."